Squirrels Run Wild!

SF Giants Minor Lines, July 29, 2026

Photo Credit: Richmond Flying Squirrels

I’m sure a lot of you watched this yesterday, but I loved listening to Jackson Flora talk about his pitch grips with Mike Krukow. I love looking at pitch grips in general, but particularly, I thought this was a great illustration of how comfortable young, contemporary pitchers are with ball flight analytics — he’s talking about grips that maximize spin efficiency; he’s talking supination biases. This is a modern pitching prospect and a product of the way the game is taught these days — comfortable and at ease with experimentation that optimizes pitch shapes. This is fun stuff! Of course, he’ll need to make course corrections as he deals with first one and then a second new ball on his journey through the minors — but once pitchers are comfortable with the basic logic of pitch lab development, they are set on their journey. Optimization tweaks and adjustments are SOP for young guys like Jackson.

HITTER of the NIGHT: Trevor Cohen (Rich), 4 for 8, 1 2b, 3 R, 1 RBI, 5 SB
PITCHER of the NIGHT: Hunter Dryden (Eug), 5.0 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K

Time for the Minor Lines to take flight, like a certain breed of flying rodent did last night, as they ran their way into history.